Found footage is an electrifying sub-genre of horror movies, but some found footage movies occasionally don’t get as much spotlight as they warrant. Typically movies in the found footage subgenre revolve around a discarded camera or some other recording apparatus being discovered, with the footage played back revealing a horrifying set of circumstances that led to the demise of the individuals doing the filming. While found footage goes back at least as far as 1980’s highly controversial Cannibal Holocaust, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project is often cited as the progenitor of the modern found footage sub-genre, and 2009’s Paranormal Activity is widely credited with popularizing found footage in a major way.
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Admittedly, the raw, shaky format of found footage makes it somewhat polarizing among horror fans. Despite that, there’s no denying its impact, with the ongoing V/H/S franchise dropping in annually for Halloween and other found footage hits continuing to deliver effective scares on shoe-string budgets. Even still, some found footage horror movies don’t quite break-out as much as they should, and others cause a stir of scares only to quietly slip under the radar within a few years. Here are seven excellent found footage horror movies that deserve much more widespread attention.
1) [Rec] (2007)
2008’s Quarantine made a big splash as a found footage sleeper hit, but it was also an English-language remake of the 2007 Spanish horror movie [Rec]. The two movies follow essentially the same plot, with journalist Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) of the documentary series “While You’re Sleeping” following a Barcelona fire department on what should be a routine visit to an apartment complex. Instead, it quickly transforms into a nightmare of ravenous zombies, with the firefighters, TV crew, and tenets trapped inside with a military squadron outside trying to keep the situation contained. [Rec] is a bone-chillingly terrifying spin on both the zombie and found footage genres, with the movie’s climactic revelation of the supernatural source of the outbreak lurking at the top of the building a literally devilishly frightening reveal. While Quarantine is a worthy remake, the original that is [Rec] should not go unexplored by found footage fans either.
2) Rec 2 (2009)
Just as the original [Rec] is a splendid found footage exercise, so too is its 2009 follow-up, Rec 2. Taking place just after its predecessor, Rec 2 follows a team from Spain’s Ministry of Health venturing into the quarantined apartment complex to uncover the source of the zombie outbreak. Rec 2 builds upon the original’s blend of sci-fi and religious elements in the origin of the zombie plague unleashed inside the tenement building, and throws a real curveball in bringing Ángela Vidal back into the story in a pivotal role after what appeared to be certain death in the original Rec. The [Rec] and Quarantine franchises largely went on two very different paths after their respective first entries, and Rec 2 takes horror fans down a terrifying road set in motion by its predecessor with a wild new interpretation of how zombie outbreaks can begin.
3) Apollo 18 (2011)
“Found footage on the moon” is the selling point of 2011’s Apollo 18, which presents itself as a classified U.S. government documentary revealing, per the poster’s tagline, “There’s a reason we’ve never gone back to the moon.” Apollo 18 follows the crew of the titular mission to the moon, which is operating as a top secret, off-the-books mission, with the crew discovering an unexpected new life form hiding in the rocks of the moon’s surface.
Apollo 18 capitalizes on the silence and isolation of the moon setting to maximum effect, and portrays the monstrous creatures lurking within the moon as both terrifying predators and a tool of psychological horror through their ability to infect the minds of humans once they get hold of them. The film also knows how to look the part of raw space footage from the early ’70s, with its grainy film stock enhancing the effectiveness of its story, and elevating Apollo 18 to a real gem in the found footage horror genre.
4) The Last Exorcism (2010)
There have been a few exercises in combining the found footage and exorcism genres, but none have been as chillingly effective as 2010’s The Last Exorcism. The movie follows Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), whose faith is shaken after the premature birth of his son, leading him to also feel great guilt about exploiting people’s faith through the many bogus exorcisms he’s performed over the years. Cotton embarks on his last exorcism with a documentary crew in the aim of exposing the fraudulent nature of exorcism, only for his subject, teenage girl Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell), to seemingly be a genuine case of demonic possession.
The Last Exorcism made a sizeable impact upon its 2010 release, only for the movie to seemingly slip through the cracks in the years since. That’s unfortunate, as The Last Exorcism really knows how to deliver on found footage and exorcism scares wrapped in a tale of one man’s crisis of faith leading to his faith gradually being renewed. With plenty of supernatural eeriness and a compelling lead performance by Patrick Fabian, found footage fans should definitely give The Last Exorcism a second life on streaming.
5) As Above, So Below (2014)
As Above, So Below takes its found footage scares to the underground catacombs of Paris with Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) bringing a documentary to the undercity maze as she follows in her father’s footsteps to find the fabled philosopher’s stone. Much to the group’s shock, they instead discover a supernatural, demonic presence lurking beneath the city.
As Above, So Below dances to a similar drum as The Blair Witch Project, Scarlett a determined go-getter who ventures into something she and her crew aren’t ready for, but the movie places its menace much more in the face of the audience to surprisingly effective results. As Above, So Below is also the rare found footage movie that doesn’t end with the camera being dropped as the last character is slaughtered, and that combined with its genuinely effective scares makes it a tremendously fun found footage roller coaster ride indeed.
6) Unfriended (2015)
With streaming and online video chats becoming a fact of modern life, Unfriended utilizes both as a found footage-style pressure cooker of a Skype chat horror movie yarn. In Unfriended, a group of high school kids on a Skype call find themselves dealing with an unexpected new account that they inexplicably are unable to remove. As the presence grows more and more aggressive and eventually homicidal, they soon come to realize it is the spirit of Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman), a girl who took her own life a year prior after a humiliating video of her was released online, and who has come to wreak vengeance on the group for their individual roles in driving her to suicide.
For all its supernatural slasher movie chills, Unfriended feels terrifyingly real with its tragic basis in the consequences of social media and the internet leveraged as tools in school bullying. Unfriended sends an important message in how dehumanizing school popularity and bullying can become for the most vulnerable, with the movie also being instrumental in kickstarting a new found footage cousin in the Screenlife sub-genre of horror with its fantastic scares and build-up to a chilling climax.
7) Creep 2 (2017)
2014’s Creep spawned an ongoing found footage franchise focused upon an ever-smiling and seemingly friendly serial killer (Mark Duplass) luring his victims into murders captured as mini-documentaries, but somehow, it’s 2017 sequel Creep 2 doesn’t seem to have quite gotten its due. In Creep 2, Duplass returns as the killer (going by the psuedonym “Aaron” after his victim in the first Creep), who wants to try something new in his ongoing killing spree. This time, he hires budding YouTuber Sara (Desiree Akhavan), admits upfront that he is a serial killer, and asks her to document his day-to-day life.
Creep 2 keeps its tension high and effective with Sara utterly disbelieving Aaron’s serial killer claims but believing his eccentricities could provide a boost to her YouTube popularity. Creep franchise star, co-producer and co-writer Mark Duplass is also in total command of every second of his performance as “Aaron,” bringing the same Ned Flanders-style cheerfulness to his portrayal of a ruthless killer the audience knows is completely unpredictable. The Creep franchise is continuing to bring the found footage thrills and chills in the Shudder series The Creep Tapes, but Creep 2 deserves more recognition as a found footage horror tale that is full of suspense and scares, paced to perfection, and is just downright, well, creepy.
